Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy, but tired and worn, just some of the feelings when baby is born. There's magic, elation, there's chaos and tears, but everyone goes through the same hopes and fears. So this is a segment we hope helps you feel supported and valid. The mum juggles real, the good, bad, the ugly, the best and worst day. It's part of the journey
to seize the Babe. I'm Sarah Davidson, a lawyer turned entrepreneur who hung up the suits and heels to co found Macha Maiden, a Macha Milk Bar, become a TV and radio presenter, and of course host The Sees the Ya Podcast. This year, I added motherhood to that list, which is the best job I've ever had with our beautiful baby Teddy, and this segment was designed to house
all the conversations we've been having about parenthood. We'll still do our regular episodes and just like real life, it's a constant balance between our parent identity and everything else. I hope you guys enjoy this segment as much as I have enjoyed creating it. I know I say this to you guys all the time, but it truly does feel like the greatest privilege to have a community or a neighborhood that shares in all our big life milestones and moments, especially over many, many years for some of
you who have so kindly stuck around this long. And I'm sure it will shock you guys just as much as me to hear that this week marks one whole year since Teddy was born. I cannot believe I have an almost one year old. The time has just flown by.
Weirdly.
It feels like I've been his mum for both a minute and a half and also a lifetime and a half all at once. I'm a bit of a walking hot mess of emotions this week. I'm so grateful that he's such a healthy, growing boy. I'm also so nostalgic that the tiny little newborn we brought home has grown so much. Either way, I can barely remember the person I was before, and I think you can probably all tell from the content over the past year that it
has been my favorite chapter by far. If you follow along on socials I think most of you do, you'll know the first birthday milestone has come with a very timely twelve month regression. We've had quite a few of these regressions, so we're back in the thick of sleep deprivation with another twist of the roller coaster of parenthood.
But it's equally been a privilege and a safe space for me actually to share the tougher times over the past year as much as the good ones with you all, and you've all been so supportive with such amazing suggestions. Teddy's actual birthday is tomorrow at the time of recording, and we're having a little birthday party on the weekend, so you'll get bombarded on all fronts with his sweet little face.
Lucky, he's cute, that kid.
Because we are not getting a lot of sleep, as you know I love to do, I'll be marking the occasion with a bit of a dear diary reflection episode of Seize the Babe on the biggest things I've learned over the past year and just taking stock of how it all feels, because I haven't actually done that at all. It's just been living in the moment, almost to a fault, though I haven't really stopped and thought about how it all feels and who I am and what's changed and
you know that. That's one of the things I love the most about having a podcast is having an audio record of who you were and how you felt at a moment in time. So I'll be doing that for next week's episode because I've had a few dms asking about.
Our birth story.
Plus I personally don't really remember any of that episode, having recorded it in the Thick of the Newborn Hayes, I thought it would be a nice throwback moment to re release that before the Dear Diary episode, to kind of have a look at what's changed, what hasn't, what turned out the way I expected, what didn't, and just think about how far we've come. I don't know if any other parents' experiences, but I still can't.
Quite believe that Teddy's real life.
Every day I pinch myself that we actually made a tiny human being, and I look back all the time at the photos and videos of the very early days. I can't believe that he didn't exist and then he did. And I can't wait to re listen to the actual chat we had with Sophie from Australian Birth Stories where I just kind of word vomited it all out in real time. I'm so keen to hear what I felt, so I hope you guys enjoy it. If you have any questions for the next episode, feel free to shoot
me an email or a DM. Nothing is off limits. You guys know I'm an open book and kind of love the gory questions, so please hit me up. Thank you again for embracing this new chapter with us and celebrating our little almost one year old.
I hope you enjoy Do you want to take us through your journey to conceiving with Teddy? Because I know it wasn't a smooth road. Do you want to take us through that first time? I think I was in the middle of promoting my book and I sent you a copy of the book and you said so timely because I've just found out I'm pregnant. It was all secret, Squirrels. What was that time like? Had you been trying for a while before you fell pregnant the first time?
Yeah, we had.
We've got quite an interesting fertility journey in that I am adopted, so and I know you have adoption in your family as well. I was adopted from South Korea when I was five months old, and so don't really have much medical history, including fertility information. But then to add to that, my husband's mother was also adopted. She was a young Asian girl adopted into Equalcasian Australian family. So so random that we ended up together. There are so many things in our story that we kind of
think made destiny all aline. So we had less of a picture I guess a family history than most people, and did actually start a little bit earlier than we ended up, kind of trying properly. We started trying before COVID.
We got married in twenty nineteen, and then my father in law got quite unwell in Tasmania, and then COVID happened, so we paused for a little while and then really gave it a go at the end of I think it was two thousand and twenty two, and we went straight ahead and did all the tests that a lot of people wouldn't probably do until six months or twelve months into trying, just to because we didn't have that picture of any medical history, had no kind of red
flags come up, and I think we felt pregnant within three months, so that was quite surprising.
I was already by.
Then kind of in my early thirties, and I just had no idea whether I'd be able to, and also adoption had always been so present in my mind that it wasn't I kind of didn't have all my eggs in this basket of natural conception. So we were just trying and seeing what happened. Happened very early, as you mentioned, I had you on the podcast and I think it was like seven weeks or something at that point, so it was so early, but I just was like, so of all people, who's going to understand and know.
That it's a secret, but get excited with me. Yeah, we had conceived, so that was really exciting.
And we ended up having a viability scan and I can't even remember the order it happened in now this is March last year, and we never actually got a heartbeat, so I think the six week scan we didn't have a heartbeat, and they sort of said, you know, this isn't enormously uncommon. You know, it's still possible that you could have a viable pregnancy, but the statistics have change now that you've made it to six weeks without one.
And then we went back a week later, we still didn't have a heartbeat, and they sort of like, you know, we got let down in very gentle stages that Okay, by now you really should have that marker. It's sort of gone from you know, fifty to fifty to eighty twenty of a missed miscarriage. Wait another week and we'll do another scan and that will really confirm it.
And then you'll know what your options are.
And I think because we never had that confirmation of a positive heartbeat, we did celebrate, but we didn't have that full safe zone of really, you know, trusting that the pregnancy would go ahead. So it made it a lot easier that it was quite early and that that was the way we found out. Still a shock and devastating, but easier then I guess if we had had that heartbeat at the first scan.
It's such a drawn out process, and I think I've sort of witnessed it with girlfriends and things that it's not just a clear cut There's a lot of blood tests and a lot of retesting and kind of a few weeks often where you kind of are trying to get your hopes up to protect your heart and that sort of dance that you often do kind of isolated. Did you share with many friends and family during that time.
No, it's so accurate what you said. It's you're so confused about where you sit in the pregnancy spectrum, like is this actually going to go ahead?
Is it not?
And then how do I feel about it? And it's such a blur and it's almost so raw as it's happening, you're not really sure how you feel about it, so you don't I didn't personally feel like I could share because I didn't really know what I would share, Like I sort of, I often wait in difficult situations, and I tend to do this generally, but I found during pregnancy I've done it even more until I'm more certain of the outcome and more certain of how I react
to that set of circumstances. I don't share it with anyone because I'm just like, well, I don't want to share prematurely, because what if I I'm not, you know, I don't know how I actually feel or how to even articulate what's going on. So I didn't tell anyone. I think we told our parents because we'd already told them when we first we very very early, had told
them when we first got a positive pregnancy test. So we then go and tell them that it had gone ahead, and I kept it quiet until months and months later, because much longer than I thought to even be able to articulate what my response was how we felt about trying again.
Then you open the doors.
To questions of well, how are you going now, and it adds a time pressure that you don't have if you haven't already shared that you've kind of started and had a false start and you're trying again. So we did keep it really quiet and just knuckled down, and I found the distraction of work and being treated as
if everything was normal actually really helpful. That there was a place I could go where it wasn't all about fertility, and it wasn't waiting for a blood test, and it wasn't waiting to just miscarry naturally or wait and see what my body did. But all the while I still
had symptoms. So I had about a month where I knew that I probably wasn't going to carry the pregnancy ahead, but my body hadn't miscarried naturally, so I just kept having nausea and saw boobs and all the things, but without the joy that kind of makes it all worth it. And I think it was one of the hardest, hardest months of my life. Just that waiting time was agonizingly slow, and I just I think I was the busiest I've ever been trying to distract myself to get through those. Each seven day.
Period felt like a year.
We're sort of going out working, doing all the things and coming home and crying or you know, yeah.
And I think because my work is so based around joy and yay, I'd put this mask on and go to work, and at the time it was what I needed to be able.
To distract yourself kind of yeah.
Yeah, completely together, joyful, and have everyone reacting to me as if life was normal. And then once I got behind closed doors, I sort of was like, Okay, I can let it all out now, but.
It didn't consume all day.
That way, rather than telling everyone and then being surrounded by it all the time, I find you do need to escape that world a little bit. So we got to week eight and they confirmed it was definitely a non viable pregnancy, and the options were just wait until your body naturally miscarries, but you'll keep having all the symptoms, or you can go in for a DNC surgery to kind of bring it about, you know, at a timed manner. And it's a full general anesthetic, and it's quite quite dramatic.
And I wouldn't.
Normally volunteer for a surgery unless I had to, and I would normally just let nature take its course. But by then I was beside myself. It had been four weeks, and the idea of waiting another day of experiencing pregnancy without knowing it was never going to go ahead, I just was like, get it out. I just want to kind of turn the clock to zero. Let my bodies every day. I wanted to feel like I was building back towards a cycle or I was building forward, but
until the miscarriage happened, that wasn't the case. I just felt like I was just in this limbo. So I couldn't actually get in for another two weeks, and that felt like agony. I was like, I can't, I physically and mentally cannot do that. And I ended up go into emergency and just at Cabrini and just trying to find a doctor who would do it and see the kind of physical and mental cost of not doing it earlier.
And I think it was yeah, by twenty four hours later, at about eight and a half or nine weeks had the DNC. I think I went home that night. It was just a day surgery, and it was International Women's Week the next day or two days later actually, and I did a gig every day.
That's your busiest season.
And it meant even more. I think because of what was going on.
I had to change all my outfits because I had a surgery and I was bleeding, so I had a line skirts that weren't tied around my stomach and that could fit a massive pad. And like, I didn't tell anyone, but in my brain, I was like, women are warriors.
Oh my god.
It's so hard because even at eight weeks after going through that surgery, you're still going through a postpartum period where your body readjusting. You've got the hormonal shift and everything, and it's interesting. I don't know if you've had time. You probably haven't had time to reflect on that now, but having now been in a postpartum after a full term pregnancy and all of those things, probably wasn't as intense because I don't imagine milk would have come in
at that point. But you've still got that hormonal shift and yet kind of if you're not openly sharing it, you can't go. I need three weeks to lie on the couch and everybody cook me meals. But it's kind of what you need.
Yeah, totally.
And I think there's such a sense, especially the first time that something like miscarriage comes into your world. We had had a lot of friends who would experience them, but they often don't share until you share, and then it sort of all came out in the months after we did start talking to friends that I mean, more than sixty to seventy percent of the people we know who have children have had one and we didn't know.
So it's sort of at that earlier time, before I knew how common it was, you do feel this weird sense of shame and failure, and you don't want to tell anyone that it didn't work and you couldn't do it or your body couldn't do it, because that's still
the narrative that you're in at that stage. So there's that as well, I think going through your head that you're like, I don't want to need three weeks of rest because you know, like you just have this sense of I don't know your body just like not being good enough for that, not the game, but for the task at hand.
Yeah, and I suppose you touched on kind of having adoption. In both sides there was some unknown so then you think, oh, maybe this was what your mother, your biological mother went through. And I know your adoptive mother had challenges conceiving naturally as well. Was she a good person to talk to about.
This or she was wonderful? She's my best friend and the most incredible support. But it actually helped that she had never gotten to the stage of a positive pregnancy test. So even getting that one step further and knowing my body could fall pregnant, she had done I think it was four rounds of IUI and then five rounds of IVF.
And this was at the very very early stages. It was quite primitive compared to the hormones they got pumped within the eighties, Like, it was very hard on her body, and so I almost had her journey and challenges like, Okay, well I've gotten a little bit further. And the statistics after a miscarriage of fertility, aren't you know, it's so common that you can still feel pregnant afterwards, that this isn't kind of the be all and end all. So it almost helped for her to talk me through it
and say, well, at least you got this far. There's no reason why your body can't do it again. We had the placenter and the fetus tested to see if there was any medical reason why there was a miscarriage, and that wasn't. It was just at the point of fertilization. Sometimes the math doesn't math, or the science doesn't science, and that was really helpful to take that whole like what did I do wrong away and just realize sometimes.
It just happens.
And then obviously we conceived again pretty quickly, so it kind of it's weird. Sometimes you want it to feel as big as it is, and sometimes you want to minimize it, to make it like it's nothing, It's just a blip on the radar, and then you try again. It's weird how you have to psychologically wide your way through how you.
Want to feel about it at different times.
You did share it more openly with the media and sort of through your platforms, But I'm just trying to think of the time frame. Were you pregnant with Teddy when you shared that, or was that prior to conceiving him.
No, So I originally wanted to wait until we did conceive again, and then I kind of got to We tried for three cycles when the opportunity came up to share it with Stellar Magazine, with an incredible team and a female led team who had actually both of them. Both of the women who were in charge of the piece had had miscarriages before. It felt like a very,
very safe space. And then I realized at that time that all the stories I had heard of people who had had miscarriages had told me after they'd successfully conceived the next time, and in the moment that kind of not that it wasn't helpful. It was enormously helpful to normalize the experience and get support and know how common
it is. But at the same time, they had that certainty of the happy ending, and so your emotions don't feel like as relatable as when you're still in that uncertainty and the throes of uncertainty that will I ever conceive again. So it just popped up in my mind that I often try and share the bloopers or the shitty bits before something has resolved, and I thought, this is a real opportunity to share while I don't have the guarantee that I will conceive because the emotions will
be so different. If I'd waited until I was pregnant, I'd be telling the story with this relief that I don't have yet, and maybe another woman who had just experienced in miscarriage would feel more reassured by someone else sharing before they had that certainty, if ever, And it was enormously cathartic to do it before I knew if there was a happy ending or not. But again the weird timing of the universe. We ended up conceiving on the weekend that the article came out.
Oh wow, so.
Weird, because there's often a long kind of gap between when you record and write and do a photo shoot to when it goes live. So in that introm wow, that's amazing.
Yeah, Like I'd done all that, I'd authentically spoken about it before I knew that we had conceived again, but then by the time and I still obviously didn't know until fourteen days after that, but it was just strange that I was like, that was the same weekend.
That's so weird.
Yeah, And yeah, if you're into that side of things, and I feel like there's often people who are yeah, who like just knew they were pregnant when they were and things, and they're not normally connected with the cosmos and all that, but it's like, yeah, yeah, interesting. You
mentioned that you sought helped through Cabrini. Did you kind of was that where you were going to birth originally and did you plan to then go Okay, well I'm ready to go back there when the time comes with Teddy's pregnancy.
Yeah, yeah, we planned to go there. We knew the obstetration that we hadn't had the first appointment because we'd never had the viability scan show a heartbeat, we'd never actually been referred, but we'd chosen our ob We live really close to Kabrini and I've only been to hospital once before, but it was there, so it felt very
safe and familiar. And then we always knew we'd go back there, and they were yet the team during the DNC after in the follow ups, they were absolutely incredible and then have continued to be so in this pregnancy as well. It's just we felt so cared for, which I know not all mothers experience during their pregnancy, and we've just had the most positive experience.
What was it like doing a test then to find out you were pregnant again.
Oh my gosh, so wild, so so I can't even describe it. One of the things that and I'm sure anyone who's experienced in miscarriage before will understand that feeling of ill, like pure elation, but it's tempered and almost the whole whole first trimester, and for some people, the entire pregnancy is colored a little bit by not trusting that it all stick or that you.
Will make it.
Like every week is sort of like you're holding your breath of oh my gosh, like, Okay, I've made it. It was a big milestone to get past where we got to last time, and then every week after that was sort of like a bonus week, but you almost don't. You want to celebrate that you've made it, but you're
almost two guns. Tried to celebrate until quite far in because you know that you know you've lost a pregnancy before, and it's it was a very strange mix of emotions of just bliss and excitement and disbelief and then oh my god, anxiety and I don't want to wreck it this time and what could I do differently? And how do I know it's not going to go ahead? The anxiety, and again, you don't tell anyone until much well did I chose not to tell anyone till much later as
a protection mechanism. So again, it's like I've never felt more like I'm living two lives then all of last year.
Which is interesting from the way that you share in a workway, you do that the bloopers like this is me before and this is me after, when you're very open in that and then to not, like yet to have to hold back in that way must have been challenging.
Yeah, it's I've never done it before.
I've never really held any kind of secret, Like I've never been on a reality TV show where I went away and then someone had to you know, Like there's never been.
A big secret that I had to.
Manage in the way I shared things. And so from January it was I'm pregnant, and then from March it was I had a miscarriage, and we kept that a secret until September, August or September, and then we felt pregnant in September, so then it was I'm pregnant from September until the time we told everyone, which we waited until eighteen weeks because I just didn't feel secure enough to.
Share the news.
So that was sort of like our whole year of living this like yeah fake, not fake, but like life for alongside but not telling anybody, And it felt so incongruous and really uncomfortable.
Was the flip side to that, It's also kind of nice having a secret just at home, the two of you knowing that you know. I mean, it seems like you guys, I don't know you intimately, but it seems like you guys are really really close. So I imagine having that secret at home was like also a nice thing.
Yeah, it was really lovely, And it was almost like once I got momentum with it, like once we sort of made it past twelve weeks and had the NIP test and knew the gender and we'd chosen a name, and then we made it past like the next scan, and I sort of started to feel a bit more comfortable that, Okay, this is probably going to be a little baby that gets born and I can get excited about it. Then I was like, oh, how long can
I wait without telling anyone? Like I didn't have a big bump at the start, so I was like, I wonder how long we can hold this in and just keep it in our little bubble.
Yeah.
And then I made it to eighteen and I was like, wow, I still haven't told anyone, like how do we do this?
And it was it was really lovely.
But then it got to the stage then it clicked over into Okay, part of my joy is expressing how I feel about things and sharing that emotion kind of how I share everything, and I felt any time after that, I was like, oh, I'm missing the joy of sharing it with my best friends or going to work and going to events with women and not sharing with other moms the joy, you know. I kind of was like, Okay, now I need to bounce this off someone. But it
was interesting. I waited until I really felt deceptive not sharing, and that it took longer than I thought.
Yeah.
Interesting, And did you travel during your pregnancy or was that prior to not?
Really, we had done an extreme amount of travel for work in the sort of eighteen months to two years before, which was such a privilege and such a joy. And I knew that I wasn't pregnant at those times, so I took risks that I probably won't take again for quite a while. Like I went to Antarctica and did a lot of amazing trauvel. We went to Morocco in Egypt. I think that also helped feel really ready for the
next chapter. So I kind of got it all out of my system, and we had a wedding actually in Greece, which is where we conceived. It's funny that once you stopped doing ovulation induction, stop timing everything, and just go and relax in a beautiful place.
That was the cycle that we conceived.
And then after we came home, I sort of was very paranoid in the first trimester about not upsetting the balance for my body at all.
So I think I had.
One long haul flight plan that I canceled. I just was I don't know, even though the OB and the GP were like, you can safely travel, I just didn't want to go away from routine and my little home bubble. And then I just didn't have anything booked after that. And then by then I'd sort of told everyone that we were pregnant, so I yeah, didn't move around. I really started nesting quite early, and we had bought a house and started renovating from I think week five maybe
from the day I did the positive pregnancy test. We'd just gotten the keys, so the whole time we were renovating, we knew it was going to be our first family home and it was really special.
You just touched on then your ovulation and doing did you want to touch on what you did was that post having the loss? Did you seek out some assistance from an IVF place or what was that journey?
So we'd actually been seeing a fertility specialist from the first time that we started trying because of the adoption history. I thought we needed to go and consult someone to just get all the tests done just to get a picture of I did the AMH test, like did egg counts, we did nick sperm quality, we did everything.
And so we just went back to them.
They were sort of were really instrumental in helping us find the right doctor at Cabrini who we could try and get to do the DNC. So they'd been there for that whole journey, and then they said, as soon as you get your first cycle back, come back and we'll make a plan.
And it wasn't so much about.
That there were any problems because there hadn't been any kind of reports come back that there had been a reason for the miscarriage, But it was more that my cycles were still really long at the time, so we vaguely knew when I was ovulating, but it was we were just stabbing in the dark a little bit at either end of that window.
And interesting enough yet literally figuratively and literally stabbing in the dark. It was a really fun time.
Yeah, they said, you know, we know that you really want to get pregnant as soon as possible, so let's get as much information as we can. But interestingly, my cycles went from fifty to sixty days. They'd been consistently that long for the whole year before, back to thirty day cycles like after a miscarriage.
It was so interesting.
My body just reset and went, oh, yeah, normal now, like, let's just go back to standard cycles. But we still did two cycles of ovulation induction to make sure that I was actually trying in the right window, and then the third cycle I was going to be overseas, so we stopped because I couldn't travel with the injections and keep them at the right temperature, and we felt pregnant that cycle.
Wow, I'm just thinking, I know, throughout your journey you had kind of quite a good support system of different resources that you leant into. Were you referred to? Is it n nurtured birth Sarah nurtured Beth? Yeah? Did a friend recommend her? Or how did you come across her?
So it's actually a wonderful story. I think you can tell by now. I'm like a big I have like quite a science brain, But then the other side of my brain is very trusting of the universe, and I think being adopted and lots of things in our story have made me know that the universe brings people into your life or makes things happen at a certain time, often for a reason. So one of the weird things
about our adoption. This is such a tangent. But my younger brother is four years younger than me, also adopted from Korea from a different biological family, but he was born on the same day.
Were born on the same day as each other. It's so wild.
But Sarah came into our world through lots of different ways, and none of them were kind of through a referral. We just went to the same cafe, and then she happens to also work with the ob a couple of days a week, was filling in I think maybe on a maternity role. But with the OB who we had chosen, and then the person who referred me to the OB, it's his cafe Jed at Eden Espresso, shout out if he's listening. So that's the cafe that she had seen
me at and we'd gone to all the time. And then we had also connected on social media through her having been the dueler for a couple of other people who are friends of mine. She just messaged me one day on Instagram and was like, I feel like I saw you, and I also think that you might be coming to my OB and I feel like you might
also be really into supporting your body. And she knew that we'd had a loss, and she not only is a door herself, but has a clinic that has a lot of fertility services, so acupuncture, pregnancy massage, ostio for sciatica, and she's like, we'd really love to support you on your journey if you would like extra help, particularly this time around, anything extra.
To give your body the support that it needs.
And I just was like, oh my god, I know you from seventy five different ways and.
You were sent to me.
Yeah, And she works often as the door up with my OB. Like it was just so strange. And then the first appointment I had with the ob she was there that day. It was just it was just so weird. So it was through lots of different ways.
Yeah, and you had sort of jumping you ahead. But you had quite a busy kind of work schedule at the end, and I saw you kind of regularly going in and having messages and checking in and doing that. So did you kind of book that in as needed or did you kind of schedule every week, I'm going to do this, or did you play it by year.
I think from the start of the third trimester we booked in something every at least one treatment to just keep the bot. I started having quite bad sciatica pretty early, and then as the work commitments became kind of crept further and further into the trimester, I didn't know i'd work as late and as intensely as I did. And I was so grateful that A I felt good enough, but b that people were still willing to have a
very pregnant woman working. I know it wasn't always the case in the media, So the fact that there was work to do and I could still get involved in fashion week it was amazing. But as we got further in and I became less and less mobile and kind of needed more and more. So we started adding a few more sessions in here and there. And that's absolutely the reason why I could still be on my feet for a long time.
Like the ousteo was just like whoa.
Whoa, we need to fix this, unlock this. Yeah, and that helped so much, so much.
At what point in the pregnancy did the sciatica present, I think.
About twenty four weeks. It came on really intensely for about two weeks and I almost couldn't walk and he was just Teddy was just kind of sitting on a spot that really triggered the saiatic nerve and I thought, if it gets worse and worse every week, I'm not going to make it to forty, Like there's no way. If it's already this debilitating, I'm going to be in
a walking frame. But then he moved up, as you know, as the uterus kind of moves up, he moved off that spot and then it just disappeared for quite a few weeks, and then it kind of came back around thirty two weeks and then stayed and a couple of people on social media were sort of like, oh, the answer really is just delivered the baby. I was like, oh, great, should there's no solution, it's just deal with it.
Welcome to the challenges of me.
Yeah, literally had they.
But there were some things that you were doing that were relieve giving you relief, and that Sarah was doing for you absolutely.
And I think before I did get quiet because you're not supposed to do much in the first trimester, and then in the second and I felt really good. I wasn't doing anything supplementary. I wasn't kind of getting massages.
I stopped getting doing anything for self care or physical maintenance other than walks and a bit of pilates because I was really gun shy from I think the first time, and then as I gradually eased back, I just was like, there's a spectrum of discomfort, and I sort of thought that I was sitting where it was inevitable and I just had to deal with it until I delivered. But I realized there's so much you can do to minimize it, Like you might not get to the third time.
Mas is pretty uncomfortable.
You're probably not going to feel nothing will really get you to not having a gigantic bump in the way of your sleep and everything you do. But there's a lot you can do to kind of make it less intrusive or less intense. And once I got onto that, I was like, oh my god, well I haven't I've
been doing this the whole time. There's so much you can do to support your body that you can't do on assisted either, Like a lot of the stretches your bumps in the way like you do need the ostrio would just move my body in ways as no way I could do by myself, and it was, yeah, incredible.
At what point did they start talking about the positioning of Teddy and did you start to kind of be aware of that?
Yeah, so think it wasn't until the third trimester that they really started to notice or even mention it. In scans, Like most of the time as a baby, they're kind of in the same shape and all the aftrasounds, but it doesn't really matter because they move around so much.
So sometimes I'd go in for a scan and he'd be upside down, and then sometimes he'd be lying on his back, and then he'd be left and right, And you didn't really take notice until sort of in the I think it was maybe a couple of weeks into the third trimester. They were like, oh, okay, he's in the same position every time, like he's sort of just lying on his back and having a great time, and his head's up pretty high and his feeded down really low.
And I started to I think maybe around thirty five I started to get real really uncomfortable in the bladder, like I needed to pee all the way through the pregnancy, but it became like I really have a yeah, like a small capacity, and yeah, the ob and the team was sort of like, ah, his head's still not turning to sort of where we want it to be, but that's okay, We've still got quite a lot of time. A lot of babies turn right at the last minute.
There's also a lot of things you can do, so around thirty five weeks I started doing There's a site called Spinning Babies that has a lot of protocols of how you can help encourage your baby to turn, like swimming in water and doing handstands and then doing inversions. There's a lot of like yoga posas you can do, or you can lean over the side of the couch and kind of do a headstand, and you can do mox sebustion, which is a traditional Chinese medicine incense that
you hold against your little toe. It sounds so weird, but we did it.
Try everything at that point.
Yeah, right, like so much anecdotal evidence. Even the ob suggested it, and she's not particularly woo wo, So we were like, look, let's throw everything at this, and we did that every day for weeks. He still wasn't turning, and then I think we got to thirty seven. Yeah, we got to thirty seven weeks and he still had not turned around. And there's a procedure you can do called an ECV where you can manually turn the baby. That ob can like physically give you, like quite an
intense massage and try and turn the baby. But by then Teddy had been tracking large and he had really stuck his feet down into the pelvis, so there was not really we'd kind of missed the boat to even try that procedure, which means that he was breach unless he spontaneously turned, which given how far down in the pelvis he was, was very unlikely. So at that point we considered the possibility of a cesarean because no one is going to give you the chance to birth naturally
if he's still breach at the time of delivery. It's just I don't think there are any hospitals that would go ahead with a natural vaginal birth that.
Way because of the footling reach presentation to me, because his feet were right.
There, yeah, and because I was so far down. I think they were just like, it's firstly, it's very unlikely that he would have enough room to turn by now by himself. But even if he didn't, they wouldn't let a vaginal birth go ahead because it would just present in too many cases, it presents too many complications and then often you end up with this cesaien anyway. So they sort of were like, I think this is the timer we introduce the possibility that you'll probably have to
book a cesarean. And I definitely had that moment of disappointment, knowing in advance that I might not be able to experience a natural labor, and I don't even I couldn't even articulate why. I was like, is it because there's stigma? Is it because I think that it's more womanly.
To go through?
Like I couldn't really explain why, but I just felt disappointed that I wouldn't be able to experience.
And see if I could do it.
I think that was part of it, Like I'd been up so up for the challenge and doing so much preparation and thought, oh is that, Like is that a cop out?
Is that?
And also you know everything you hear about bacteria in the vaginal canal and like all the congestion that they get, Like I was like, oh, no, is this just like not the right way for him to enter the world.
And my ob was amazing.
She was very much like, at the end of the day, you want a safe delivery of your baby, and no one has chosen the way that he has positioned except him. So he has done the math and he's worked out that he's not going to come in his head was really big as well. She was like, he's done the math that he's not going to make it out that whole, and so he's quite comfortable where he is and we just want him out safely and that's all anyone wants. So whatever, you know, this is just he's chosen and
you just have to go with it. And it was a really good exercise in surrender of in preparation for labor where you have to surrender completely. Anyway, it was just a very good, gentle introduction to the idea that you have no control really and you just have to go with what your baby has decided is how he wants to enter this world. So we booked for thirty nine weeks, and I think they do that so that there's a less chance you'll go into labor before that.
So they bring it forward a week and then said left it open that you know he might turn and if he does, amazing, we'll leave it and give you the chance to do a natural vaginal birth.
But it's unlikely.
So went home, had a couple of days of getting my head around it and kind of let go of the disappointment as well and just embrace, like, Okay, whatever happens happens, and I'm in the safest hands no matter what, and I will trust my bee. From the minute I met her, I was like, our risk thresholds are the same, and I just trust you'll make the decision that I will never not be happy with in the end. And then I had Sarah as the dueler, also informing kind
of the process. And then the ostio Kadi was also a midwife at Cabrini, Like there were so many people, like a consult in the team who got me on board and yeah. So by then we changed to weekly appointments. We got to thirty eight weeks and this was the big appointment where we were going to go through what it meant. He was still breached, so we were going to go through the appointment and figure out what the plan was for the C section and what it would
look like. And I had this list of questions and I got ready for what it.
Was going to be. Like we drove to Cabrini.
I didn't have a bra on, I didn't take my bag, I didn't take anything because I was like, oh, we're just going for half an hour and it's around the corner. I was quite large by this point. I'd done that sort of ten days straight of work on my feet. I was pretty uncomfortable. So he dropped me off at the lift so I wouldn't have to walk up the ramp and drove away to park the car and I ran after him, like waving, and he was like, what's wrong, And I was like, my water just broke everywhere.
And my water broke at the hospital on thirty eight.
Weeks on the dot, everyone had said, like, it doesn't happen like a dozen of the movies. Not a big gush of water, it's just a little leak. It was a massive gush for me, like it was all over me, did.
You hear it? It just hurt. It went through the pad.
My shorts were like a light colored linen drenched, like literally dripping everywhere. There was this big like from me running after Nick, there was like this big like look someone ever had a hose that was just following me and it kept going.
So then I ran back to.
Hide behind a car so that it could just keep coming out, and He's like, oh my god, Okay, oh my god. So he just like abandoned the car in the closest spot, which I don't even think was like a normal car park. And then we called Yeah, we called Danielle Mayo Bee and said we're on the way to you at your office, but should we just go straight to the birthings week because my waters are broken? And she said yes, I will meet you there.
Oh wild.
So I walked all the way through Caberini leaking, just like trying to hold it in, and was like.
That's all right.
I'm sure they've seen it.
Yeah, they were like, I don't worry.
You're not the first person who has bodily fluids coming out. And we went straight to the birth suite and I never went home.
Wow. Was there a little bit of a sense of panic then or was it sort of controlled because they obviously didn't really want you to go into labor. They didn't want the contractions to really ramp up because they didn't want him to birth that way. Did you feel like rush, rush, rush then? Or were they like, no, no, it's fine, it's your waters And you hadn't probably had a contraction or a pain at that point, had you no?
So I had no idea it was coming, Like I hadn't felt different sort of in the date, Like I didn't have any yes signs of contractions or pain or anything like that. So I was very unprepared. It was a big shock when it happened. We didn't even have the hospital bag in the car. We just weren't because we booked it. We had this date. We had the
thirty nine weeks was the date it was coming. And the whole silver lining of cesarean was that you had the certainty of a date so I put every this date and ignored the fact that it could, of course happen earlier. But I had gone into labor and I had I had contract so I started to have contractions, but they weren't getting really close together that quickly, so they sort of knew we had a bit of time. Unfortunately, I had just eaten and you're supposed to fast as
well before the surgery. So I think because of that and scheduling and getting the pediatrician in on time and getting the team together, I think they ended up deciding that I could wait five or six hours, So we scheduled it for five or six hours time, and in that time I got my head around it, if that makes sense.
So I was extremely shocked, but.
Then I had time to let it all. I didn't go straight into theater, which I think would have totally freaked me out. I had time to sort of realize I was in the birthing suite. But also what was really beautiful about it is I got to experience both without it being traumatic. And I think some people do get quite far into natural labor they tear and then they have to have a cesarian, and then it's kind of like, well, I got the shit bits of both. I kind of got the nice bits of both. I
got to know what a contraction feels like. I got to know that also Teddy was getting the massage that a contraction gives to the baby. They wanted him to have a little bit of that if they weren't getting too close together, and that was really.
Good for him and good for my body.
And by the five hours they were getting a bit spicy, and I was like, Okay, this is good. I know what this is like, and I know that my body did this naturally, so I know the date wasn't also artificial, like we let nature kind of do its thing, and he was ready to come out. Yeah, And then we went into theater and again the weirdest thing in this
whole world universe thing. My mum had just been going through breast cancer treatment, which was very unexpected, and it happened in my third trimester and she was in one of her very last radiation.
It all went as well as could be expected.
She had surgery really quickly and they got most of it, caught it really early, and then she had to do fifteen days of radiation and I think it was like day fourteen she was very close to the end and we called her to say my waters had broken and she said, I'm also on level too at Kabrini.
So she was in the hospital and said, I'm on the same level. I'm just in a different building. I'll come and meet you.
And Rob said, I am also obviously, will go into an appointment with her. She said, I'm also here. I'm going on my wedding anniversary holiday at four am in the morning. So he got me just on time. And then the person who I had booked for recovery was Katie my Osteo, who is never on a Thursday night, and she happened to be the person who I went straight into recovery with. So it was just like Teddy knew. He's like, everyone's in the building. Yeah, let's just do it tonight.
I'll just do it now, you're coming.
Yeah, I'm ready. I just don't want to miss out on the fun.
Did Nick grace home in between if he had those five hours, did he go home and get your stuff?
Yes? Yeah, So they told him like nothing is going to ramp up. They monitored me for an hour and they're like it's not going quickly enough to worry, go and get your stuff. I mean he's spared home. He was there and back too quickly to have been going under the speed limit, but yeah, he went and got everything, came back and mum was there as well, and they spent that sort of five hours with me. Yeah, and then we went in and it sort of was so
weird to know. I think the thing with the C section that was weird for me is they're like, yeah, he'll literally be out in ten minutes. I was like, what what, what do you Yeah, and they're like, yeah, a lot of it's the prep for the anesthetic, but then once they kind of open you up, he just comes out.
I'm like, well, I'm going to be a mom in like ten minutes. What do you mean? It was so weird? Did you call Sarah?
Sarah wasn't just happened to be in the hallways as well?
Did you call her? Imaginant? That would have just been weird. Yeah.
I called her straight away and she came in, so she was there for that whole lead up as well, and then talking through ways and it was really beautiful. It was by then embrace the idea of a cesarean and that it could still be made as beautiful. It is still the moment you become a parent. It is still the first time you see your baby. I was still with the amazing team that I thought I would be with. There are ways to make it not feel like a kind of sterile, scheduled thing, and it obviously
wasn't scheduled for me. It was still a surprise, So there was that element as well. And you know, Myobe's amazing. She always has rainbow scrubs or like under the CEA theme or something.
And she walked in and.
The first time she walked in, she had gum boots on, and she brought in this neon pink sign that said you are amazing, and just had that as the light, like turn off all the lights. This was in that five hours, so she was like, we're gonna make this amazing. It's going to be absolutely lovely. She took the sign
with it. She borrowed it from another patient who had finished you can't just take this, and then she brought it from that room into the operating theater, so it was there and I think, you know, I do know women have come away from Cesarian's feeling disappointed. And I had enough time and enough amazing people that it didn't feel that way. It was still magical. It was still like I'm becoming a mum right now.
M And I think the common thread all in all the research is having that continuity and having a support team which you'd handpicked and the universe had sent to you at the right time. But you had that so you didn't have to Everybody knew you, so they knew how to support you, and they knew you kind of wishes and what you guys would want. So, yeah, sounds so nice. Was he crying when he came out.
Yeah, so he's such a sweet little boy.
He's got such a lovely temperament, and that started from the start. So I was worried because he didn't really cry. He sort of just did one big cry. He just went ah, and like it was the first noise I heard, and I just remember I got goosebumps, Like I knew that it was coming, and I knew he was coming out, but just to hear the noise and independent noise that he was alive, it just I cut I still, like,
I don't know how to explain it. But then he didn't keep crying, so then I sort of free out, like, why isn't he crying? But what had happened is I was contracting and they had to pull him out in between contractions, which had become quite strong by then, So instead of just opening me and pulling him out, they opened and then had to pull in between. So they pulled one leg and then apparently they pulled the other leg.
Then they had to wait to pull his head out, and he did the little cry and then it pulled him back in.
So yeah, so they were like, oh no, oh my god.
So then when they got it, so they got him out, he did the one scream, he went back in, and then they got him out and were pulling quite hard.
And I didn't know.
I knew that you wouldn't feel pain. I didn't know you'd feel so much pulling, which was so weird, like my shoulders were moving around, and Nick was just like, oh my god, what's going on. I was like, I don't know, it's so strange. We had the curtain down until they sort of pulled him out and put him on my chest, and it.
Was so beautiful.
His eyes are wide open, but he wasn't breathing very well and he was starting to go a little purple and wasn't crying, and I think it was because he'd had air, got used to the universe, and then went back in and then was like, oh my god, how do I breathe? So then they had to take him away to the like only to the sort of resuscitation table, put a little, tiny, little oxygen mask on him, but
straight away he went pink. So he was getting air and I was getting live updates and they were reassuring me a lot like he's okay, and Nick had gone straight over with him, and then he came back pretty much five to ten minutes after that, so I got skinned to skin straight after that, and yeah, it was just I still can't believe it happened.
It still seemed so surreal.
And then you get that time with them on you while they stitch you back up because of course you've just undergone.
Major adominal surgery.
And then I had to go to recovery, which was one thing I was worried about at the time that I had to go for half an hour while they took all my vitals and they Teddy went.
Somewhere else, which I was sort of like, I like no, but.
Nick went with him and they had this incredible bonding time together where Nick had him like skinned to skin for that whole half an hour and he got weighed. They kind of put his first nappy on, Nick did his first nappy change. They sort of like, here, here's this newborn. And I've had a lot of experience with babies.
Nick has had none, and he was just like, what do I do? But by the time I got back to the room, he just become a dad. Like in that half an hour. It was bizarre.
It's almost like you fall in love with your partner again because you're like, that's what we made.
And is it interesting? Because you're adopted, he's your first biological link that you are connected with and know, and he looks obviously very Asian and a lot like you. And I know Nick's got some Asian heritage as well, but was there something quite special about seeing that and seeing that he looked like you.
Yeah, it only hit me. I think halfway through the pregnancy that he would be my first blood relative, like I just forget. I think one of the most beautiful things about our adoption is we forget all the time, and even though we're very Asian looking at it, My mom's extremely Caucasian.
It's just show not does that too about gluten intolerance, And I'm like, you guys aren't biologically LinkedIn.
And they're like, oh, yeah, I didn't eat pork so my whole life until I was in my late twenties because I thought I inherited it from my mom.
Like it's beautiful, how easily how connected you are.
Yeah, And interestingly, people when we're out and about, they always say, like you and your mum, like they know from our body language, or people assume that I'm half and my dad's Asian. It's really interesting how easily you can forget that, and how I'm always believe it's because of that that, you know, I think a lot of people think blood is thicker than water, but I've just thought love is thicker than anything.
Like that's kind of the bond that we have.
But it did dawn on me a lot of things that were significant that have never been significant until pregnancy. For example, that from now until Tea being five months old, mom didn't see because she only got us at five months old, and so she's gone through the ultrasounds and the newborn phase, like everything is brand new for her. As well, which is so magical to watch her go
through it. And then when he was born, it was like he looked like my brother weirdly, and we're not biologically related, but he had like his nose and I didn't see it sort of straight away because it was like a little squishy newborn.
But by about a week he was doing some things that I was like, you look like me.
And now more and more as his face develops, people are saying like, he really looks like you, and I'm like, that's so cool. I've just never seen my features reflecting in somebody and it's so beautiful and weird and magical.
Yeah. Ah, And I mean primal always springs to mind, but it's just so kind of grounding birth and pregnancy and things, Isn't it just the kind of connection there. We were chatting before we hit record about breastfeeding. Did you do much preparation in your pregnancy? I mean, it seems like almost a silly thing to say, because you can. I obviously support and definitely recommend people do learn about breastfeeding in pregnancy, but it's so different to actually doing it. Did you do some It's.
So funny breastfeeding, especially like definitely is the case that you can't prepare for any of it in theory, but the whole experience, I said to you before we started recording, I felt immediately like I had to apologize to every parent I've ever interacted with about parenthood or their children, or people I've gone to the hospital to visit while they're still in the hospital, or I've gone to someone's house and not taken food or tried to empty their dishwashot, like,
I just have done things that are so useless in that time because you just cannot fathom. But then also everyone who has done it before. You just suddenly connect with these people on this new level that you've never had with them before.
It's just so weird. It's like you've.
Become another species or gone to another planet or something. Yeah, just bizarre. So yes, I had through Sarah, who is just such an amazing fountain of knowledge and has an incredible network. We had a lactation consultant come and do a session with us, so she introduced basically the whole landscape at once, which was amazing because I just sort of thought, you put them on your boob and it works or it.
Doesn't, like either you can or you can't. And I was formula fed.
So I think one of the things that helped me and Nick not be to cling you towards certain outcomes or to judgmental of ourselves or other people if you had a c section or a natural birth, or if you're formula fed or not. Is that with adoption, like you kind of you've already accepted, you know, the sort of most just different, yeah, different way pathway to parenthood. And then we had to be formula fed. So I'm like, we turned out fut well, a bit weird, but we
turned out pretty okay. So I haven't been too wedded to making something work at the expense of our health or at the expense of our mental health. At the same time, I think you can set yourself up really well, and you have been such a pioneer in that that being informed is all that matters, because then at least you give something a good go and you're not trying the wrong thing or not giving yourself a good chance.
So we learned all about latching, and also I didn't realize that even if you can breastfeed.
It still hurts like a bitch. Nipples have to get used to it.
Even if you're going to end up not feeling it and being totally at ease, there's just this adjustment period that is hell.
Hell the pain.
I don't think I've ever been through something so painful as my nipples in that first two weeks. And that was even with a really good latch and with all the education behind us and that cabreed it. Were there for five nights and we had breastfeeding consultants coming in every day, and I still was like cracked and bleeding and still having to put him on the boob every time.
Oh oh, I'm so glad that bit's done. But no one prepares you for how much you hear.
And a good point though that you got that you're through it like it. You've kind of they've recovered.
Yes, and people and I just turned a corner one day and I suddenly understood when everyone said, even if it's going well, you still just have to get through that bit, and even if you've had a child before, even on your second child and third child, you have to go through it again to get your skin used
to it. So don't give up, don't push through to the point of killing yourself, which I know some women do because there is a lot of stigma around formula, and even with some of the breastfeeding consultants, there are some old school views that get very pushed on you, and I think women have made you feel incredibly bad if they can't breastfeed, which many can't, or if they need to supplement. I've been president of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee my whole life. I've never had boobs, so
I had no faith that they could perform. And it's got nothing to do with size. It's got nothing to do really with you doing anything. It's not your fault. It's I do not deserve. I have never had boobs or been a boob representative. I do not deserve to breastfeed well.
But for some.
Reason, my milk came in really easily, even after a sea section. So don't be hard on yourself. And I think I know women who have pushed themselves beyond to try and make it work just because of the stigma attached to going to formula. But at the same time, don't give up too early because it's painful no matter what. So I kind of feel like that's a weird message to give people, But.
Yeah, get through the first six weeks and then decide yeah.
And people would say just hang in there.
And I really remember at one point balling my eyes out and someone saying that for them it was at four weeks, and for me, I was two weeks in and I just thought, that's too long, Like two weeks, I need to hear that in two days I'll feel better. And I did end up in two days at least feeling incrementally better to see the light to keep going. But it just that felt like a million years. Had you set things up?
I know you were reflecting on, oh God, I went to the hospital to see people and stuff. Had you set up expectations of how many people you wanted to come to the hospital or to home, or did you think we'll just see how we feel.
We kind of have had and the same thing with work, we've kind of had to see how we feel approached to most things. But at the same time, because I know I'm really prone to getting over excited and also to having no clue before we went into it what it would be like, or what we would feel like, or what my recovery would be like with a C section as well, we gave ourselves a bubble and then
allowed it to be flexible, if that made sense. So before pregnancy, I wasn't very good at setting up bubbles to protect myself, but I thought, because I just don't know what this is going to be like, we pretty much set up like six weeks of nothing, no appointments. Like Nick has work, but he works from home. He sort of set up no physical meetings or anything. I have no work commitments or nothing that I had to
be ready for. And then we also set up like no booked visits before that time, so as soon as we felt ready, we could, but we didn't sort of say to anyone or set up the expectation come over on this week or And it worked really well that he arrived early because.
We also did didn't tell anyone that.
He had arrived until our second last night in the hospital, so we created an extra bubble of five days to just be in it together and be in the chaos and not want to be on my phone. Whereas I knew if I'd announced it, then we'd have messages from loved ones and I'd want to respond to share in the joy. So we just told our parents and our siblings and my aunties who were really close to when they came to the hospital, but then by the time we announced, no one could kind of come because we
were leaving them day. And then when we got home, we didn't invite or encourage any visits until because I just did not feel like I could.
I don't even remember that time, yep.
And then once it started to feel like we could cope with that, we just had one every sort of like I think we started with one in the first week and then it was like five days until the next one because that was just like whoa, oh my god, I'm so tired. And now we've started to have you know, it won every two days and it's just a short one. And people have been so respectful. And most of our
friends have had kids, so they also understand. They've all brought home cooked food, which I just cannot express my gratitude for our loved ones. They have been so in tune and so incredible. Some of them have even done the dishwasher, like and they all also know that your social battery runs out really quickly as well.
Yeah, I don't know to stay.
Yeah, everyone's just been amazing.
I just realized when we talked about food too. We've glossed over and we probably don't have time. I'm not sure, but we didn't talk about your gestational diabetes. But were you like just so excited to be able to eat again, like all the things you want to eat.
It's so funny. I was so stoic about it when it happened, and I remember being and I've shared this a lot on socials with other women who have had their diagnosis. I remember being again, there's a lot of stigma around it. People like, but you're fit and healthy, and I'm like, that's not you didn't do this is not to do with that at all. It's just your hormones and your genetics, and you know you can't do
anything about it. So there was that overcoming that, and then there was overcoming the fact that you're so exhausted and uncomfortable in your third trimester that the admin of having to learn a new thing was just so exhausting and you just you barely can figure out what to eat anyway, And I.
Felt sick towards the end doing blood tests.
Yeah, four times a day, I didn't ever need insulin, but that also meant I kind of had to be stricter with food, so I just was like, oh, another thing, and you're already tough. But in the end, I really saw the silver lining in how nourished I was. By the end, I felt really strong and healthy, whereas I'd been really leaning into I'm pregnant, I can just like eat whatever which you can, but I was getting especially lazy now that uber eats exists for pregnant women, So
it was I felt really healthy going into birth. And I think you also adjust to it very quickly, so that testing became second nature. It wasn't a drainer or anything. It taught me a lot about energy management and nourishing yourself generally. But even with that, all that like positivity.
The day that he was.
Born and the next meal, they were like, well, the main impact is on him and he's out of you. So my first meal that was delivered was just normal food with bread.
I was like, oh my god, I can eat bread whenever I wanted. I don't have to worry about it. It was bliss. Oh my god. It was amazing just to not have to think before you eat.
Yeah, totally. And then you could like carver a load for your breastfeeding. How has your incision healed?
Yeah?
Really well, really well. I think one of the hardest things about and that I was worried about before the C section was that I knew in that first week, like I'm sure natural vaginal births you don't feel one hundred percent physically straight away either.
But I was.
Worried that you can't even sort of stand for the first day because you know, the drugs take like twenty four hours to wear off, and then you do have a huge incision where they've moved all your organs around. You are in quite a bit of pain for that first two weeks. Definitely the first week and you're a bit hesitant around your physical movements, but you're also trying to lift your baby and learn to change nappies and
do everything one handed. And I don't really take panatoll very often, so I was sort of like, oh, I don't really want to take too many meds.
I just took a lot of them.
I just did what I needed to get through and followed all the instructions.
I use the compression.
When they told me to wear the compression, I was horizontal as much as I could be. In between Nick was amazing. You really need to lean on your partner to do to minimize the times that you were getting up and down as much as you can. And we have stairs at home, so when I first got home, he would up and down, up and down, like unless I really needed to go down.
We try and make sure I was not getting up too much.
And it's nearly four weeks out and I almost can't feel it, which is quicker than I expected.
Yeah, amazing, Yeah.
But it does feel very intrusive at the start.
Yeah, and if you felt fine about physically touching and massaging the scar.
Only in the last week I've had this like a second skin, like a really intense dressing on it, which I don't have to take off until the six week appointment. And it's so far it's lasted really well, so that's allowed it to just be protected. You can shower, you don't even have to think about it. It's waterproof. But it was very very tender until and I had quite a bit of swelling above it with all the just
liquid that's going through your body. And then I actually had no water attention or puffiness during pregnancy and in the week immediately after, but once I got home, suddenly my lymphatic system just couldn't deal, and I got really puffy and needed to wear compression socks, and then the wound got really.
Puffy and was still quite sore.
But I would say around the three week mark it became I'm not avoiding it. I was avoiding it, like really actively avoiding that area. It wasn't as sore to move around, but to touch it was sore. And now I am using oil to sort of just gently massage the area and it does remove a lot of the swelling to kind of give it that massage, And I'm sure once the dressing comes off, I'll try and do a lot of scar management as well in that area. But it's been a lot quicker than I thought, and
the swelling has gone down a lot with the massage. Yeah, it's actually just the body is amazing.
And he is ridiculously cute. And I know I've got three of my own kids, but he's right up there and he's so cute. Do you find I know, Johnah and I are fighting with the first there's a little bit of like it's my tent to hold me?
Now, do you have a little bit of my whole family? Like my mum comes over and she's like, I don't wonder why you shouldn't wake away you wake a sleeping baby, but can you wake him up? Because I really want to cuddle him, Like I don't want to interrupt your system, but I kind of do. We just love him so much, and yeah, I definitely I think we're all so biased. But at the same time, I'm like, he's objectively really beautiful.
He really is. He's a really cute baby.
He's gifted and talented and all the things. So he's so advanced.
He's definitely going in an accelerated program. He's next break, he's doing tummy time and he's holding his neck up.
I did not expect that. I thought that'd be so wobbly. He's really strong.
But I think also because he didn't go through the birth canw and we didn't need fourceeps or anything. He also was like quite formed from the start.
Which was instant squished.
Yeah, he wasn't squished, so I was like, oh, yeah, so pretty.
How much did he way then three point one when he was born so not as heavy as we were expecting. I didn't realize the variance is about eighteen percent to an ultrasound, so we thought he was massive and his head was big, but he wasn't as big as we had been expecting. And then my milk took about three and a half to four days to come in, and I'd expressed a lot of colostrum in the weeks prior, so we had enough to keep in going for two and a half three days.
The third day he.
Didn't have enough and was starting to lose weight, and I think they're happy with ten percent, but he got into eleven percent, which was still okay, but they wanted to arrest the trend, so we ended up feeding him formula twice. And that was around the time where I sort of realized some people still really talk about it in quite a stigmatized way.
They were like, oh, we.
Don't want to give you the F word, and I was like, does it matter. He's hungry, And that just saw him through and helped him turn a corner. And then my milk could come in and I was expressing and he started putting weight back on, and I think he got back to his birth weight by about three weeks. And yeah, and now he's just gotten to the stage where the ones is that he started in that his feet wouldn't even reach the little feet pocket thing he's pushing at the end of.
Them now, and I'm like, that's happening too fast.
You'd be putting them away for the next one soon. I feel like we could talk all day, but I better let you get back to him because he's teeny tiny. But thank you so much. It was so lovely to hear your story.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I feel like there's so much else. I'm like, oh my god, there's so much I want to talk about.
I have to get you back when you've had a bit more postpartum. You'll have to come back and tell us more about post fudom.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. You know, your podcast and your book and community have been such a just safe space and has helped me feel so confident. And I really didn't go into it feeling much fear, and I think that's quite rare but also very very much attributed to your work. So I'm so grateful for everything you do.
Oh thanks.
Well, I don't know if any of that made sense, And again, as I mentioned, I feel like I forgot to say so many things. There were so many other details, But I also completely run myself short of time and poor Sophie just got an ear bashing. I loved reliving it. I can't imagine ever emerging from this newborn bliss. So I'm not sure when the next follow up episode will be, but I do promise it will come eventually. I have so much more to say with the life lessons and
revelations coming thick and fast every single day. You've probably seen a few ted Talks which have now been renamed Teddy Talks on socials about things that I'm learning each day, but I somehow have lesson less time to actually articulate them for you. So TBC for now on the follow up episode, but I promise it will come. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you so much again to Sophie for being such a wonderful and thorough host, not that I really gave her the chance to ask
any questions. Apologies for chewing your ear off, soph and you guys, but I hope it was informative and interesting. In the meantime, I hope you guys are having a wonderful week. It's been after having just recorded that the first four weeks were wonderful and very smooth, or smooth than at least I expected, even though they were chaotic. We've had this week a couple of nights of projectile vomits, of maternal and child health appointments, of five hours of
unexplained crying. It's been a little bit messier, and that's all part of.
The beautiful chaos. So you know that I love to share the bloops. There's a lot of bloops.
They're just free flowing, and I'll keep sharing those of your way as well, so that you're getting all the side of the picture as usual. But yes, I hope you guys are having a wonderful week. Thank you so much for sharing in our joy, and I hope you're all saving you're ya.